Shifting Shadows: The Evolution Of OCD Themes

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music. Hello and welcome to The OCD and Anxiety Podcast where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety disorders disorders, taking back control so that you can start living the life you choose and not the one chosen by your fears. Music.

Hello and welcome to episode 399. I hope that wherever you are today, you are doing very well and if you are struggling with OCD or anxiety and you would like to get some support with that well you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com and you can book yourself in for a for a free session or if you prefer you can send me a message and just let me know about what you're struggling with. In today's podcast I'm going to be talking about the the shifting nature of of obsessions.

If you're struggling with with one theme today it's quite possible that that that theme could quickly shift and change onto something else. Not always, sometimes Sometimes people have persistent themes that continue for a long time, but often they do switch. And that's an interesting part of it that I think actually offers up some hope for change when it comes to OCD. If you find the podcast helpful, as always, it would be great if you could follow

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Here's a quote from the OCD therapist Lisa Kaufman from a Psychology Today article that she wrote. And it is this OCD can be extremely sneaky and can switch the content of what you once felt fearful and and obsessed with to a new theme or obsession entirely. And yes, I can attest to that myself.

Self having having experienced um you know many different themes within within the realms of possibilities of themes within ocd which seems like you know it there there pretty much seems to be an endless possibility of different themes having worked with now many many people who who struggle with ocd you know i'm i'm not surprised by by the different themes that pop up because is there's so many different things and OCD tends to focus on the

things that we really care about the things that are are most important to us and it uses uncertainty about those things to to create fear and anxiety in us here's another really good quote and it's by Stacey Quick LPC she's writing it for NoCD and the article is called why does my OCD keep switching themes. And the quote is this. Remember, the bottom line is that OCD wants certainty. It wants to insert doubt about who you are and what you're capable of.

The catch is that it will never be enough. It is an impossible feat. That is why we need to learn that no matter how horrific or distressing the content of the thoughts may seem to us, and how strong the pull for certainty is that we do not need to engage. And this is a great quote because it really gets at the pull that the OCD has to try to get us to engage with things.

It uses morals against us. It tries to get us, you know, to kind of get back into that trap with the OCD and start fighting against it again, looking for that certainty. And it's very sneaky in the way that it does that. A lot of people who seem to struggle with OCD, in my experience, also tend to struggle or not struggle, also tend to be quite creative people.

You know, and that creativity is often used against us where the mind is coming up with all sorts of bizarre things in order to try to catch us out.

And it's almost like a fisherman is kind of casting out a rod with uh with bait on it and it's uh you know a really well disguised hook you can't see the hook at all but underneath that bait that hook is there and you know we're kind of like fish that are swimming around we're kind of checking out the bait we're swimming up to it we're looking at it we're thinking about taking And sometimes we're able to avoid that situation.

To not bite down on that bait and then get ourselves stuck on the hook. And other times, well, for some reason, normally it's because the OCD is so good at this game. It's so good at kind of creating these sneaky, creative storylines that kind of draw us in.

And on those occasions we might actually bite down on that hook despite the fact that you know we we may know on some level that what we're doing is still OCD because of the creativity and the sneakiness of it we still sometimes you know we'll bite down and get ourselves stuck on the hook and and once we get stuck on that hook well we know what it's like now much like a a fish that it starts floundering on a line.

Well, we do the same kind of thing and it's really frustrating and annoying because when we start to fight.

Against uh you know any new potential obsession or theme that comes up and we start to really try to pull away for it almost like a fish on a line what we're doing is we're just using up our energy we wind up exhausted but we're still stuck on the hook nothing has actually changed you know but but now we're also exhausted and we all know what it's like if you struggle with ocd you've probably been through that kind of analogy scenario many many different times and you know when when OCD

does change theme one of the challenging things about it is you know perhaps with some of your other themes that you know you've really thought about those themes inside out you've really explored it you've looked at it from all the different angles and maybe you've arrived at a point where you know intellectually you can't think about it anymore and you've already exhausted yourself doing so many many times and so you know there's a part of you that recognizes that the only

option there is to kind of leave it and walk away whereas you know new themes perhaps you haven't done that yet and i think sometimes that that can be another thing about it that makes um makes it difficult for people because there's this idea of well i haven't thought about that maybe i need to think about that now just to disprove it before i can walk away from this new theme you know and and i. Think uh unfortunately you know that's just another really good way another sneaky way that the

ocd draws us back in again and gets us back on the hook you know we don't actually at all have to uh to do anything with a new particular theme that comes up because all that's really happened is ocd is again playing its classic game it's recognizing uh that it can use uncertainty against you it's trying to find a new thing because you've dealt with some other obsessions maybe you've done some exposure work you're feeling more confident now about those particular

obsessions and OCD doesn't like that it doesn't want you to start being happy or to start living your life it wants you to stay trapped and so you know it provides you with a creative new topic or theme for you to start thinking about and resisting and fighting against and you know before you know it, if you do start trying to figure that theme out. You know, if you do start overthinking and overanalyzing it, well, we know what happens.

As I've talked about before on this podcast, it's almost like when we begin to overthink something, it creates this kind of monkey knot in the brain where we are more and more kind of getting stuck with this thing. Like we are thinking about it so much that this monkey knot is getting tighter and tighter.

Later and you know we're not realizing that in order for us to really kind of loosen up that knot again what we have to do is just walk away to leave that thought to stop trying to figure it out to allow that thought to just be there you know and and actually just try to come back to the present allow the uncertainty obviously though that can be very very challenging and that is the challenge of OCD.

But when we do this, when we refuse to go down that rabbit hole and to start looking for certainty about this new obsession. Well, potentially we miss out all of that potential negative stuff that we might have spent weeks or months going round in circles with.

We can potentially avoid that altogether by just allowing a little bit more uncertainty into our lives and it doesn't necessarily take that much it's not that you're you know i think some people get really confused sometimes with the word acceptance for example there's this idea of you know what if i'm accepting something and i'm just kind of allowing it to be there allowing the uncertainty then isn't that bad or isn't that doesn't that mean i agree with the thought or Or doesn't that

mean that it's negative in some way that I'm doing that? Doesn't that mean that, you know, my hands, for example, are still contaminated and, you know, and it's not that you're agreeing to that. It's not that at all. It's more that actually what you're doing is you're just acknowledging a small amount of uncertainty. And that's all it really takes. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to say it's completely uncertain, but you just have to acknowledge that in life.

Unfortunately there are a lot of these uncertainties and when we go about demanding to not have any of those certainties to to have a hundred percent certainty about everything which is unfortunately what we're often doing with OCD you know we really get ourselves stuck because you know one thing that we do know about life is that it's inherently uncertain and that things Things are going to keep on changing. And so we need to kind of recognize that.

And even if you're not going to fully embrace that, just recognize that if you just allow 1% of uncertainty, 0.5% of uncertainty, 0.1% of uncertainty, however you want to view it, just the idea of saying to yourself, well, I really don't think that can happen, but you never know. Or maybe, maybe not. When you start using these kinds of approaches, it can really help you to let go of any new potential theme that is really trying to catch your attention.

Because remember, what you're up to here is you're trying to change your habits over time.

And if you've been doing exposure work, you've been doing acceptance commitment therapy, maybe you've got better kind of not dealing with not pushing away the anxiety at dealing with particular themes and obsessions better you know but but then a new one pops up and you know you're still doing the same old habits and unfortunately you know if you keep doing those same old habits well it's going to be pretty hard to to change the the OCD over over time really what we have to

really be focusing on is changing our behavior over an extended period of time over weeks and months because when we can do that that's when we can really start to uh to get the the benefits of neuroplasticity where we're kind of laying down new circuitry in our brains that is a lot healthier that is much more about letting go of control allowing a little bit of uncertainty living a bit more in the present. All of these things that we know are very helpful for us.

In order for that to happen, if you're just instantly getting involved with any new potential obsession that pops up and you're straight away trying to figure it out again, getting caught up in all of that thinking and ruminating about it and trying to disprove it and all of that kind of stuff, well, you're still getting caught up with compulsions.

Because obviously a lot of the time compulsions are kind of reassurance seeking thinking kind of behaviors where we're just trying to figure everything out and have certainty about things when you choose to let go of that well you give yourself an opportunity if you keep doing it if you keep letting go and just allowing life to unfold a bit more naturally as as it should well you're giving yourself that opportunity to you know to develop those new neural pathways ways

and you know to have a different relationship with OCD moving forward to allow a little bit of uncertainty and I think that gives us the best potential shot of learning how to to manage it and hopefully overcome it in in the long term you know and so I think it's so important that we that we recognize this and that we try to view also the fact that OCD themes change from thing to of things so easily that can also be a helpful thing in itself this kind of realization that.

Maybe a theme that you've been stuck on for a long time, you know, finally you realize that it's not true and that it's just a trick of the OCD and it's been tricking you all of this time. And suddenly it doesn't bother you so much anymore. And you think, great, this is fantastic. I've moved on. And then boom, it changes and goes on to something else. How annoying. But it does demonstrate something to us. And that is that the themes are actually irrelevant.

Relevant this has got much more to do with how we tolerate discomfort anxiety uncertainty it's got nothing to do with the themes and i think sometimes for people who really hold on to the content of their themes and what that might mean about them and all of that kind of thing you know that can be really helpful to realize oh actually you know this demonstrates because it can change so quickly and just move on to something else well it really kind of demonstrates that you know perhaps that

theme wasn't so relevant to you after all and I think that can be really helpful for many people so there we go guys I really really hope that you enjoyed that one if you have any questions at all please don't hesitate to let me know and I will see you next time.

Just a quick reminder that if you want to get a free session all you need to do to get that is to head over to my website www.robertjamescoaching.com and there you can leave me a message and we can arrange the free session, and now just a quick reminder of my disclaimer any information that you view on my website Instagram page Facebook group or anywhere else online or any information that you listen to on the podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be

a substitute for actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor, psychologist, or any other medical or mental health. Music.